


the storm before the storm

by KunessiPhany



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Angst, Because like what else is new guys?, Crismes ftw, Junior and Salo are like siblings, M/M, Real Madrid CF, domestic at times., transfer rumors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-13 23:20:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19261201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KunessiPhany/pseuds/KunessiPhany
Summary: "How are you feeling?" Sergio asked, taking the baby from his arms."Like Mom," he replied. And it was the truth. He felt like the stay-at-home mom who took care of the kids and waited up on her husband, the one who had to look pretty to keep up appearances and had to pretend she didn't know she was being cheated on.Sergio eyed him wearily. "And how do you want to feel?""Like James Rodriguez."the downfall of James and Cristiano as seen through flashes in time.





	the storm before the storm

**Author's Note:**

> Blame this fuckery on [this amazing prompt](https://writersblockwithprompts.tumblr.com/post/182290113179/writing-prompt-73).
> 
> Thanks to Ximena13 for beta-ing, even if she dislikes almost all RMCF and is indifferent to Crismes lmao ly bby

**_and what if love is lonely_ **

 

James watches Cristiano from across the room forlornly, Salomé bouncing in his lap as she plays with Cristianinho beside him. He feels briefly like the abandoned housewife, forgotten in the routinary of their lives and the bitterness that stemmed from it.

"Saloooo!" Junior whines, rubbing the spot on his forehead where the four-year-old had accidentally hit him. Salomé bursts into giggles, making the older boy smile and roll his eyes.

"Juniiiior," she mimicks.

James looks at Dolores beside him, who holds a fast-asleep Mateo, and Eva Maria lies dreaming with her thumb in her mouth in the stroller between them.

  


_It was Junior´s birthday, though most of the Real Madrid players were present. Sergio headed toward James, who was rocking Eva in his arms._

_"How are you feeling?" Sergio asked, taking the baby from his arms._

_"Like Mom," he replied. And it was the truth. He felt like the stay-at-home mom who took care of the kids and waited up on her husband, the one who had to look pretty to keep up appearances and had to pretend she didn't know she was being cheated on._

_Sergio eyed him wearily. "And how do you want to feel?"_

_"Like James Rodriguez."_

  


Cristiano and Dolores put the newborn twins to bed, while James takes care of Salomé and Cristianinho. Junior climbs onto his bed after giving the rest of his sleeping siblings a kiss on the forehead without complaint.

James sits on the side of the bed, waiting for the eldest to settle so he can give him the customary kiss good night before lights out. Instead, Junior kneels before him, hands on the Colombian's cheeks as he kisses his forehead.

"Goodnight," the seven-year-old boy says, snuggling under the covers. "Have fun, papi."

James buries the urge to cry as he stands.

  


_James never officially moved into Cristiano Ronaldo's home._

_He and Salomé merely began to spend more and more time at the Dos Santos's household, sleeping over more and more often, until most of his clothes were found in Cristiano's closet and the guest room Salomé slept in got redecorated to her tastes._

_Salomé began to call Cristiano "Daddy", the same way Junior stopped calling James by his name, instead one day casually and accidentally referring to him as "Papi."_

_Dolores wasn't surprised when she realized it had happened._

_Cristiano and James never talked about becoming a family. They just did._

  


When James walks back downstairs, Dolores is in the kitchen with Katia and Cristiano in the living room with the team again. The Colombian can hear Karim, Luka, and Nacho in the kitchen with the female Dos Santos.

James hesitates at the doorway for a moment, watching Cris laugh and joke around with Gareth and Pepe, Marcelo hanging onto his arm like a little kid whining for attention. Sergio, Iker, Isco and Toni are nearby in another group huddle, talking amongst themselves.

James hasn't felt this alienated from his teammates since his arrival at _Los Blancos_.

Sergio spots him first.

  


_Slowly, Cristiano started to distance himself from the home they created for themselves._

_A loss for the team meant an extra hour of practice at the end of training, meant James went home by himself to take care of Salomé and Cristianinho, meant he ate dinner alone with the two kids. It meant he helped Junior with his homework and practiced Salomé's reading until he tucked them both into bed._

_It meant he himself slept alone until Cris came home, if he didn't stay at the Valdebebas to begin with._

_James wasn't too sure when they stopped being a family._

  


"Hammy!" Sergio exclaims, calling him over with a smile. James smiles back reflexively, but it doesn't reach his eyes. Both of them can only think about the Colombian's words earlier.

James makes his way into the room, walking toward Sergio and Iker, toward his captain and ex-captain respectively. He feels tired, even though it is barely ten p.m. on a Saturday night, but he doesn't want to be alone.

So he lets Sergio pull him into his side, lets them include him in the conversation, and lets Cristiano ignore him.

Alone is how he's been for a while now.

  


_Everything changed that month._

_James was informed of his loan to Bayern Munich early that Monday morning, to the absolute shock of everyone. There had been rumors, of course, but there were always rumors._

_Cristiano's initial reaction was fury, to throw a tantrum and demand James stay, while James was merely devastated._

_He certainly thought about protesting, but the mournful feeling in his gut made itself known before he could, and he resigned himself to his fate._

_After all, James met Cristiano thanks to football, but there was no way Cristiano would be the reason he stopped being James Rodriguez._

  


James Rodriguez moves to Munich, close enough to Arturo Vidal that they become fast friends. Elisabetta and Salomé become fast friends, as well, given there is only a year of difference in their age gap.

James easily finds a way to get along with Alonso, though his personality is very different from Cristianinho, and at times makes him ache for the seven-year-old fiercely. Salomé asks about him often, about the twins, wants to Skype and FaceTime with her brother and daddy all the time, and James has no idea how to distance his baby girl from the family they'd had.

  


_Georgina Rodriguez announces her three-month pregnancy the same week James is asked about the transfer to Bayern._

_And suddenly, it all makes sense._

_All those nights spent alone because Cris was spending more time at training, was too tired to come home so he stayed at the Valdebebas, was too busy to have dinner with them, with his family._

_They were no longer a family by then, and James hadn't seen it._

_Cristiano doesn't ask him to stay, doesn't ask for forgiveness, doesn't deny that the baby is his._

_James leaves, Alana dos Santos is born, and Cristiano wins custody._

  


Cristiano remains furious with the club that didn't want to keep his boyfriend.

The entire team knows the loan had been Zidane's doing, because no matter how much the Frenchman denies it publicly, he can't _stand_ James. Nobody knows why, but they all have a feeling it's because of his relationship with Cristiano.

Cristiano remains so furious, he asks to transfer the following year. He remains equally angry at himself for losing every precious thing he'd had. Madrid only holds hollow memories of a good life, a _great_ life that no longer was, so he moves to Turín, to Juventus.

  


_Cristianinho cried when James explained to him that he was being loaned out, that he would have to move to Munich for a time. He was still his papi, they could still talk whenever he wanted, but they would no longer live together._

_Junior broke his heart when he asked if it was something he'd done, a punishment of some sort._

_James could only look up at his ex-boyfriend, who refused to meet his gaze, and hug his eldest tightly, trying not to tear up himself._

See what you've done? _, James wanted to yell at him._ Are you happy now?

  


Cristiano calls James sometimes, to ask how he's doing, to talk to his _nena_ , to tell him gossip he's honestly not interested in.

Cris calls him half a year after his transfer to Juventus, drunk as hell, babbling nonsense about how the club was good to him. It was certainly no _Los Blancos_ , but it was great.

James would love it there.

"Cris," James sighs tiredly. It's around one a.m. and Salomé is running a fever. He has training the next day and honestly just wants to get some rest.

Cris quiets suddenly, reluctance obvious.

"Would you have stayed?"

  


_Arturo asks him once, when they're having a drink after training at a bar, about what happened with Cristiano._

_His relationship with the Portuguese star had been common knowledge in the football world, the same way Iker and Sergio's marriage was, so James had been expecting it._

_The Colombian merely shrugged and knocked the liquor in his glass back._

_"I don't know. I guess he didn't love me anymore."_

_"I think he still loves you."_

_"Maybe."_

_James shrugged. It didn't matter. He'd gotten used to it, to the fact that love was a lonely affair, selfish when it concerned him._

  


"What?"

James's heart has stopped beating.

"Would you have stayed?" Cristiano repeats. "If I had asked, would you have stayed?"

James takes a deep breath and runs a hand over his face, feeling twice his age.

"It wasn't about that, Cris," he finally replies. "Zidane wanted me gone, and Perez wanted to keep Zizou happ—"

"If I had asked you to deny the loan, would you have?" Cris insists, cutting him off. And James has always known that the truth is harsh, it hurts, and it's hard to admit.

But he does it anyway, because they both need it.

"No."

  


_"I miss you and Salomé, papi," Cristianinho lamented on the screen of his phone, Salo sitting on his lap to fit in the frame of the videochat. "Nana keeps saying I'll see you soon, but when is soon?"_

_James's heart twisted in his chest as he smiled gently._

_"I don't know yet, but we miss you, too."_

_"Junior, guess what?" Salomé cut in with a toothy smile, raising all ten chubby fingers. "I can count to one hundred now!"_

_Junior smiled softly at her with affection shining in his eyes, and James was struck by how much older he looked._

  


"Will you ever forgive me?"

James is startled to realize Cristiano has started to cry.

"I already have," he replies, because that is also the truth.

Time and distance have put things into perspective for James, has made him realize he turned into the perfect housewife who only cared for their children, who went to training but never played, who prioritized the kids before him because Cris had what he wished for.

Because no matter how lonely being with Cris had become at last, James can't deny he still loves him, still longs to sleep in the bed beside him.

  


_Arturo could see right through him, James was completely convinced of it at times._

_"What will you do once the two years are up?" he asked James once during training. "What are you going to do when the loan ends and you have to go back to Real Madrid?"_

_James could only shrug in reply._

_"You're gonna have to solve your issues with him if you're going to play together again."_

_It didn't matter, as it was. Cristiano transferred to the Series A after that, to Juventus, and Arturo transferred to La Liga, to Barcelona._

_He was left alone again._

  


"Come with me," Cris pleaded suddenly. "At the end of the season, the loan is up. Please come to La Juve with me."

James reminded Cristiano, "Bayern has the option to buy at the end of the season."

"You can't go back to Madrid," Cristiano continued. "Please, we can try again."

James rolled his eyes fondly, knowing he could make no promises. He had to think of himself first, his and his daughter's future. He could live without Cristiano, had already proven it, had become accustomed to the loneliness that came with his love.

"I'll think about it," he promised.

  


_Cristiano called as soon as the news broke that Bayern weren't buying James Rodriguez and that Real Madrid were looking to sell him._

_"Are you doing it?" he demanded. "Are you coming with me?"_

_There was a loud screech in the background, followed by the sound of baby laughter. James wondered if Cris hadn't gone insane yet, with 3 two-year-olds to run after._

_"Is that Papi?" Junior's voice asked in the distance, and James couldn't help but chuckle to himself._

_"Well?" Cris insisted. "Are you?"_

_"Yeah, Cris," he answered, hugging his smiling daughter to his chest. "Yeah, we're coming home."_

**Author's Note:**

> Well I hope you liked that because see i dont even know what that was i swear my stories all write themselves. I just liked the phrase and my mind took off running with the idea.
> 
> Also, hope they do end up together in Juventus.
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/kunessiphany).


End file.
